Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Writer Claims The Last Jedi Gave Him Plenty of 'Gifts'

Following the movie's release, Star Wars fans have seen how The Rise of Skywalker followed The Last Jedi and concluded the Skywalker Saga. And while Rian Johnson's film was divisive amongst fans and critics, Episode IX writer thinks it left them some gifts that they could use and work on in the film.

Speaking with Indie Wire, Chris Terrio details these gifts and how they incorporated it in The Rise of Skywalker. "We wanted to show all the characters growing in some way," he said. "Poe, in The Last Jedi, there's a question of whether he can step into Leia's shoes." Terrio says there was a subplot in The Last Jedi of "teaching Poe how to be a leader in the way that Leia was," and he thinks this became the "nugget" of Poe's story. "In the course of the movie, he has to step into her shoes," he added.

Another "gift" from The Last Jedi was Rey And Kylo Ren's connection. "That was a great gift of The Last Jedi, in that their relationship seems very intimate and specific," Terrio said. He thinks both characters are part of the "same whole" and that "they're really one person," because of the way they interact, which is through a Force bond.

"That really helped us in thinking about Rey and Kylo Ren, which is to say that we wanted to elaborate on the idea that Snoke bridged their minds in The Last Jedi," he added. However, they wanted to show that there was something "deeper" whilst "leaving it to debate" on when exactly they had this bond and if the Emperor actually made a mistake in doing so.

Terrio thinks the characters' relationship is "extremely interesting and complicated," and he admits that it was one of the things he and director J.J. Abrams loved about The Last Jedi that they "luckily inherited and could build."

Another gift from Johnson, according to Terrio, is Rey and Kylo's force bond where the rain has crossed from one place to another. "We thought, we're going to try to really push that to the point where these two heirs to the empire," he added. "That they're bonded by the Force, but they're not going to be bonded on the Dark Side, which is what Kylo Ren thinks at the beginning of the film — that they're going to be bonded on the Light."

In addition, he also revealed that they were "dying to do" that Lightsaber pass in The Rise of Skywalker. "To see Ben Solo holding a Skywalker saber was a really important thing for us," he said. This scene was also one of the parts that most fans really enjoyed.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now showing.

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